Hmm, just very quick comments to the end of Rick’s message:
Whether that’s true of not, it sure doesn’t help the people in the collective for whom that variable is “out of control”; they are suffering constant error while you enjoy watching you virtually controlled variable behave like a real controlled variable.
Yes it can help them at least to understand why their situation is like it is. I believe it is a human condition to be suffering constant errors because the political decisions, the systems of our work places and other institutions, and the opinions and tastes of our neighbors are seldom just like we would like them to be. I don’t believe science could ever do much more.
I think the main problem is that each perceptual-signal-carrying neuron in your presumed array of neurons is influenced by the same output. So I don’t see the PCT control loop as being analogous to the situation where a virtual reference state emerges from the actions of a collective of conflicted controllers.
Seems like you were captured by the paper and computer models where the input function is neatly in a box and even though there comes many arrows to the box, only one arrow leaves it. But if we think that every signal channel is a bundle or an array of neurons, and if comparators and other functions are built from synapses, and every neuron has its own synapses then it is quite improbable that there were just one node or crossing of single neurons. Rather both the signals and functions are throughout stochastic collective processes through the hierarchy.
Eetu